Just over a month after the publication of ‘Successful Futures’, an independent report, commissioned by the Welsh Government to consider ‘New Assessment and Curriculum Arrangements’, Leaders and Teachers are finally getting a chance to think about its implications for their schools.

Professor Donaldson’s Report focuses on six areas of Learning and Experience to surpass the existing curriculum and impact on all learners from the age of three to sixteen. We’ve been told by Huw Lewis that the report sets out a ‘compelling, exciting and ambitious vision for a new curriculum in Wales’. Mr Lewis is not wrong!

The Report is a result of months of research, review, evaluation, discourse, questionnaires, visits and much more including the interviewing of pupils. It is built on sound pedagogical evidence – in fact the whole of chapter 5 ‘Pedagogy’ is clearly linked to Visible Learning (the work of Professor John Hattie). Many of the recommendations are also linked and evident to Visible Learning and Outstanding Teaching Intervention.